C-Suite Meets CX: How Experience Strategy Reaches the Top Levels of B2C Organizations

While most organizations identify customer experience (CX) as a top priority, some have not developed methods to successfully organize around the concept. Now, they are assigning CX execution with the right departments and internal teams, but not without prioritizing CX strategy oversight at the highest levels of the organization. As CX becomes a more central part of business growth, the majority of organizations are formalizing methodologies and best practices.

NGCX teamed up with the WBR Insights research team to investigate how companies are investing, structuring, and applying resources and best practices in CX. Whether starting at the C-Suite level or as a function of intra-department teams, our research measures success rates and gains direct insights from industry professionals about the approaches that are driving real business results.

To identify CX's place among organizations' myriad priorities, respondents were asked to rank the role of their CX strategy within all of their organizations' greater customer-facing initiatives. Almost half (46%) consider CX a top priority as part of their overall growth strategies.

Many respondents consider CX a top priority in terms of a financial investment (30%) or as an employee training effort (27%). (2 lower rankings have been omitted from the chart.)

Growth strategies, which encompass multiple categories--brand, revenue, CX, etc.--are created and executed at the highest levels of the organization. Although CX initiatives for the purpose of generating revenue and improving employee engagement are critical, they are most often managed on an inter-departmental basis or become part of growth strategies themselves.

Respondents were asked to identify where CX leadership begins within the organizational hierarchy. The results show that for most organizations, strategic CX decisions are made at the highest levels of the organization. Most respondents claim C-Suite (40%) or VP-level (24%) executives have oversight over their organizations' CX strategy.

As readers will find in the final report to be released by NGCX, CX implementation is most often directly managed by department heads, directors, and even team managers. This suggests a traditional passing down of executive orders to teams most closely aligned with strategic execution. (4 less-cited levels of seniority have been omitted from the chart.)

Strategy, oversight, and execution aregreater aspects of CX strategies themselves--the WBR Insights team wanted to know the qualities of these strategies and teams' preferences in how they are managed and distributed.

Interestingly, the only three majority responses show that organizations favor formal, organized qualities within their CX programs, with aligns with their high-ranking executive oversight.

The vast majority of respondents (72%) claim documented CX strategies and methodologies are characteristics of their CX strategies. Formal plans to adopt or improve upon CX strategies and methodologies are also a characteristic for most organizations (55%). Intra-departmental CX oversight within one department or more--indicative of department heads' close involvement in CX decision making, as identified by respondents--is also a characteristic for 55% organizations. (7 less-cited characteristics have been omitted from the chart.)

This stands in contrast to traditional methods of creating CX qualities at the departmental or even team level, as is sometimes the case in customer service environments, for example. In our final report, Setup for Success: Realigning Organization for Improved CX, you will discover more ways organizations are realigning CX strategic decision making within the organization, aligning it with broader business goals, and formalizing execution for a more unified approach to consumer markets.

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